mingster

this thread is designed to give you guys an idea of how much it costs to air ship something from Japan.

a customer of ours ordered the top secret front bumper from us, and decided to use air shipping because it's a lot faster (much faster than ocean, which sometimes can take up to 3 months in our experience). our usual policy is to charge for the part only before it arrives from Japan, and then charge the customer for the actual shipping costs. since we have a shipment from Japan every month, it's cheaper for a customer to be a part of the bulk shipment. and since every shipment is different, we wouldn't know the actual shipping costs beforehand, and not wanting to pull a number out from my ass, we resort to this type of business practice. the customer paid the retail equivalent of the cost in Japan (88,000 YEN) before shipping.

the parts arrived today, and i received the invoice from our freight forwarding agent when i went to pick it up from the warehouse. we had a smaller shipment - only a few sets of wheels, exhausts, and some other parts, along with the Top Secret front bumper.

the box containing the Top Secret front bumper has a shipping weight of about 40kg, the dimension of the box is 75"x22"x26". you can see the details here: http://www.topsecretjpn.com/aerokit/s-2000...0-frontspo.html

if you have any experience working for the airlines or done importing and interacted with freight/shipping agents, you'd know airlines charges freight in two ways: actual weight or volume weight. if you were air shipping bulk cotton balls, for example, the airlines would charge you for volume weight since actual weight would be very light. if you were shipping something like depleted uranium where the mass is incredibly high but the size is incredibly small, the airlines would charge you actual weight. whichever is higher is what the airlines and their shipping agents will charge you by.

back to the main topic: the airlines charged, by volume weight, 117kg (!!!) for the box because it's so big. that means the airlines charged roughly 257.4 pounds of volume on the front bumper, eventhough the shipping weight was only 40kg.

after the shipping costs, customs brokerage fees, bond fees, import duty, and all kind of little fees charged by the airlines and the shipping agent are added, the front bumper's shipping cost comes to $508. and this is BEFORE shipping domestically from Los Angeles to that customer via UPS Ground. i'm using a new shipper who is owned by a family friend, and this is the DISCOUNTED cost to me. i used to use a very large shipper named BAX Global, and they charged me close to $12 per kilogram of shipping from Japan!!!

lessons learned: air shipping, though fast, is VERY expensive. please understand the timeframe and costs we have to bear to import parts via air. if you want parts ASAP, please remember the costs of importing these parts from Japan. i've been accused a few times of "gouging" my customers (not this current one, though he's not yet aware of the shipping costs ), though it pains me very much when i read such harsh and angry words from my customers, i try my best to show them proof that i'm not in the business of ripping people off. impatience = higher cost.

this is why i try to go with ocean shipping whenever i can.

thank you all for listening.

MarkS2K

Richard,

I know you're not trying to rip us off. Funny how we were talking about this just yesterday.

It's hard to run an importing business like you do, especially as a small business man. I appreciate all the effort you have put into it.

KeithD

Rich,

Your great in my book. Whenever I need a part I always come to you first.

DC5 Kid

so, what's the deal with that customers....did he buy the parts?

mingster

a professor (and a respected fellow board member) at Pepperdine University whom i respect very much talked about the issue of educating the customers, i figure this is as good a time as any to do so.

below is part of the big stack of paperwork i got, note the weights.

Schatten

great info Rich! thanks for sharing.

Jaykkub

Just curious...how much would have shipping been if it were shipped by sea?

Jaykkub

mingster

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jaykkub
[B]Just curious...how much would have shipping

4IGS2000

WoW!!!
Bax only charges me a 1/3rd of that price per Kilo Door to Door from TYO-SFO.
Better get a new BaxGlobal account agent

mingster

you're referring to the actual shipping cost, i'm adding customs brokerage fees, bond fees, import duty, and all kind of little fees charged by the airlines and the shipping agent. BAX makes more money on the customs brokerage portion than anything else